Another Week and I’ll be Bowling
Apr 2, 2006 | Shoaib Akhtar
I’m pleased to say that since my knee surgery, everything has been going well and it’s so far so good and I will be bowling again after another week.
I have been training hard in the gym on upper body and lower body exercises as well as cycling and swimming. I’m feeling strong as I’ve been doing gym work five to six days a week, not every day as the body needs a day or two to recover from all the workouts. I don’t want to overdo it.
Everything is cool and if my current progress continues as it is at the moment I hope to reach full fitness by the end of this month, so that would mean I would be in peak condition by the time the England tour comes round, which has always been my main target.
The next big step for me is to start bowling again in one week. I won’t be charging in off my usual run-up straight away as I need to build up gradually. I don’t know how long it will take but I know it won’t be long. I just have to be patient.
Dr. David Young, who carried out the surgery on me, has kept in touch since he operated on me in Melbourne last month. He is pretty pleased with the way things are going with my recovery so that’s another plus point. Nobody knows my body better than him after he scanned me all over so it’s good to hear him being confident about my fitness.
In between the training, I’ve been spending time in Lahore, relaxing, watching he guys playing in Sri Lanka on the TV and also spending time with my family as I don’t always get the chance to see them as much as I would like because of our touring commitments.
In that first Test, I thought Shoaib Malik played really well for his hundred to save the match. He’s a tremendous talent. The guys making comebacks like Faisal Iqbal and Imran Farhat also did well while the boys tried hard with the ball on a difficult pitch.
It’s been a long season for our team. There have been so many games and I think that, understandably, a bit of tiredness is creeping in and affecting our cricket. I feel for the team having to go through so much cricket and especially over there in the heat of Sri Lanka.
I have a feeling they will manage something special in the last Test match and come up with one last big effort to end the season with. They will come out hard at Sri Lanka and be positive.
I’ve been phoning the boys and texting them and staying in touch. Although there’s the small matter of two more one-day games in Abu Dhabi this month, the team will have a long two and a half month break after that, before we go to England, and that will give us much-needed time to recharge the batteries.
Very admirable news from the camp. Masha-Allah, tremendous to see the recovery process has been steady and stable up until at this point, and Insha-Allah, pretty soon, Shoaib will be back on his mark soon, all ready to flow in the English tour this summer.
On another note, Shoaib + Asif + Sami on English wickets = (Arguably) the best and most lethal bowling combinations in the world cricket, bar none!
I hope he recovers fully so we can have a decent attack in Shoaib Akhtar + Mohammed Asif, backed by Rana and Razzaq. Rao and Gul have not been as great as I thought they would. We still need to find good replacements for Razzaq and Rana 
i mean extremely over weight. one could doubt whther he is going to make a comeback in pak-eng cricket seires or some wight lifting championship:dixsi: .